Hap Arnold Didn’t Want Black Pilots – Charles ‘Chief’ Anderson Trained Them

From Blackpast.org

Charles Alfred Anderson, often called the “Father of Black Aviation” because he trained and mentored of hundreds of African American pilots, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, on February 9, 1907.  His parents were Janie and Iverson Anderson. Charles Anderson earned the name “Chief” because he was the most experienced African American pilot before coming to Tuskegee Army Air Field (TAAF) in 1940.  He had amassed 3,500 hours of flight which prompted most of his contemporaries and students to call him by that name as a sign of their respect for his accomplishments.  Anderson was also the chief flight instructor for all cadets and flight instructors at Tuskegee, Alabama during World War II.

While growing up in Bryn Mawr, Anderson developed an interest in aviation.  In August 1929, at the age of 22, he borrowed $2,500 from friends and relatives, bought a used airplane, and taught himself to fly.  Later that year he received License No. 7638.  In 1932, Anderson received a commercial pilot’s license and an air-transport pilot license, becoming the first African-American to hold both certificates. In the same year, he wed his childhood sweetheart, Gertrude Elizabeth Nelson. The couple had two sons.

In July 1933, Chief Anderson and Dr. Albert E. Foresythe, an Atlantic City, New Jersey surgeon and Tuskegee Institute graduate, made aviation history when they became the first African-Americans to fly a plane across the United States–from Atlantic City to Los Angeles, California and back. Their two-seat Fairchild 24, which they called The Pride of Atlantic City, had no parachutes, landing lights, radio, or “blind” flying instruments.  The pilots used a road map for navigation.  Anderson and Foresythe were sponsored by the Atlantic City Board of Trade, and they stopped in cities with large African-American populations along the way.  In 1935, they flew a “goodwill” flight to the Caribbean, stopping in the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti in their plane named The Spirit of Booker T. Washington.

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